


In From the Cold

by peoriapeoria



Series: Bucky's Luck [4]
Category: Captain America (Movies)
Genre: AU, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-03-16
Updated: 2013-03-16
Packaged: 2017-12-05 11:51:16
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 890
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/722975
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/peoriapeoria/pseuds/peoriapeoria
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The plane is found.</p>
            </blockquote>





	In From the Cold

Bucky didn't even know they were still looking for Steve. He'd come down hard on Howard for ignoring Tony, and somehow he'd gotten through. He supposed that when you were rich you could delegate.

Bucky had a phone, a txt reader, it had been a pager before, that was predominately a red herring. He had been, after Steve went down and Bucky had wandered back to the allies, the best chance for replicating the Serum. It took them years to figure out best wasn't very good. He'd spent those years, when he wasn't in the lab as a rat, raising the children while Peggy herded secrets.

His phone mostly received messages intended to take time to crack and resources to check out. Some low level real material passed over it too, and some things encrypted in ways machines couldn't crack.

"The eagle is landed. Ahab appeased."

To find that not only had they Steve's body, but that he was alive.... Bucky rode the S.H.E.I.L.D. transport to New York with the travel bag Peggy had waiting for him at the tarmac.

"What the hell?" Bucky looked at the room, the set, that painters were still plying with brushes. "You want to play head games?" He turned on the radio, he wondered if was an antique or if they'd printed it.

"They didn't want to shock him." The woman looked good, but she was a bit too tall and not rounded enough.

"Like he won't see through this? With a ballgame he was at? We didn't replay games years later back then." That was his main skill-set these days, shooting down too smart plans. It had started when computers made manipulating photos so easy. He could dissect missing shadows and extraneous ones quickly.

"What do you suggest?"

Fury. Bucky still didn't know how he just appeared; he should make more noise, that coat should make more noise.

"Make it look like the future, like people didn't give up."

"You heard him." The woman strode off. Fury ordered the painters to start disassembling panels. 

Bucky spent time in the observation room. The base medical looked a bit too much like Zola's lab repainted. Efficiency. They were keeping Steve under while his body healed cell walls and other ice damage. He looked good on the outside already. With him under and fed intravenously he might be ready to wake in a couple of days.

He hadn't thought Steve could be alive.

\------

Steve heard baseball. The resonance of leather on wood, of leather on leather pulled him from sleep. Where was he? There was so much light, he remembered the plane, looking at all the controls labeled in German. Jim had been on the radio until Peggy replaced him. This didn't look like heaven. His jaw dropped.

"Hey, punk, you'd think you'd spent enough time in bed sick."

Bucky. Okay, maybe he was wrong. "You look older."

"Yeah. You don't."

Steve looked around. "I did crash the plane. How long?" He fingered the smooth cloth like no tee the army provided. "Peggy." She had moved on, otherwise she'd be here.

"Sends her regards."

"How is she?" Steve didn't know what Bucky's expression was. "Bucky?"

"It's been more than sixty years, Steve. I married Peggy. We have some great-grandchildren."

"She married you?" Steve wondered if you dreamed when you died. He pinched himself. That hurt.

Bucky sat on the bed. "I woke up on the side of a mountain, and when I got back I found you'd gone down in Schmidt's plane. The scientists are flurrying around it, the ones that aren't life science. You're their grail."

"You don't look sixty. You can't be eighty." Steve swung his legs out, happy to see his feet and toes. "The floor is warm."

"You think that's neat don't bother with socks, there's more come."

"Has she been happy?" He'd loved her, but he wouldn't have wanted her pining for him. "When did she marry you?"

"June 7th."

Steve's mouth formed an O. "Thank you."

"Somehow I'd never thought it would have been me at the altar. Not that I wasn't careful..."

Steve laughed. That was Bucky, on the razor's edge of lewd. "I doubt any of them would have found me a better fate." He thought a moment, then opened his mouth. He read the 'not here' in Bucky's eyes. He had a child, an old woman or man, Peggy was old. He hugged Bucky. "How?" He'd seen him fall. "I didn't look for you. I should have."

"No reason for you to think so. And, I told Howard to stop looking for you."

"Is he..."

"Dead, a long time. He's got a son, a bit older than Howard was in the war. Yes, old man and young wife. I think Tony's smarter."

"What aren't you telling me?"

"It's not the right time to let people know you're back. You're... You're a legend. People aren't ready for a real hero. They need one too much."

"Can I meet your family?" He didn't expect any of the Commandoes were alive; if they were Bucky would have said something. Women were tougher, so Peggy made sense. She'd been so tough and beautiful.

"Doctors first. Oh, some of them are women. Just before you call one a nurse."

"Still looking out for me."

"Always, Steve. Always."


End file.
